Cable Building

Discussion in 'DIY' started by Skyline, Sep 30, 2015.

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  1. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Friend

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    Oh, trust me - my fingers hate me right now. I did some really rough math and I think for 7 feet, i did something like 12,000 braids.
     
  2. Armaegis

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    At least the three-wire braids are relatively easy to do. I used to do 6-wire round braids, or 8-wire interwoven star quad monstrosities... I needed a vice and some clips-as-weights to hold everything in place while working, and it was slooooooow going.
     
  3. AllanMarcus

    AllanMarcus Friend

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    Nuforce icon amp. I have one!
     
  4. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Haha, so do I :D
    I even have the matching S-X speakers and sub (along with the HDP dac and semi-rare dual linear power supply). All things considered, it's a nice sounding and super compact system. I currently have it out on long-term loan to a buddy of mine.
     
  5. fls.audio

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    Just built this short 4.4-XLR cable to use with the iFi Zen DAC which doesn’t have a full-sized XLR outputs. Mogami cable, fiberglass sleeve and adhesive heatshrink. First time I worked with the 4.4 connector which was a terrible experience, not sure how the Chinese companies could manage to fit 8 or 16 cores inside this connector.

    [​IMG]
     
  6. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Friend

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    I don't know how you can work in that kind of connector. Great job!
     
  7. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    It's just exposed parts of a barrel without tabs right? Ugh it was a terrible experience.
     
  8. fls.audio

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    It took too much time to work on this connector, keeping the wires in place to solder was the worst part. I can’t believe how people could think of such a horrible connector.
    Yes, I melt the black plastic part a bit too. Balanced connector is meant for preventing noise but this one is surely a sucker for all kind of shorts and noiseee.
     
  9. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I managed by pre-tinning the wire and the barrel sections. Then holding a small sliver of ceramic/glass, I used that to hold the wire in place and just tapped the side of the barrel with a small solder blob and that was enough to get everything to melt and wick together. Still, it was ugly. I think I wound up smearing a thin layer of hot glue over the surface to make sure nothing would ever short out.
     
  10. toddrhodes

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    Constructed the VHAudio DIY Fine Silver Interconnect tonight. Overall wasn't bad. Wrapping and securing the silver wire around the insulation tube is kind of a whore, but other than that, this was an easy build. Have this between my phono stage and line stage. Building another to go from my digital rig up to my line stage. Used Chris's 99.9999% pure silver solid core signal wire, wbt silver solder, and KLE silver RCAs. These RCA's were awesome to build on, but would not be all that great for center-core types of wiring, like coax.

    [​IMG]

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    [​IMG]
     
  11. toddrhodes

    toddrhodes Friend

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    I don't ever want to read "cables make no difference" ever again. My system absolutely sounds different now. Much more highend energy and splash but at least so far, no stridency or anything. And after hearing another very good system, I realized mine needed a little of that, so this seems to be a nice, gentle step in that direction.

    For clarity - previous interconnect to the one above was a Mogami 2549 cable. Love those because they are super smooth and easy on the ears. But, that can also serve to suck a little life out of certain recordings, provided the replacement doesn't swing too far in the opposite direction.
     
  12. fls.audio

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    Handsome cables. How stiff are they?
     
  13. toddrhodes

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    Not at all. Insulator feels like a limp noodle, and even with the teflon tape wrapping and techflex, it's more flexible than raw Mogami 2549.

    I'm about 3 LPs in and I am completely digging this cable. In fact, thinking about my experience so far with Chris's recipes and products - I haven't hit a dud yet. Might try a Pulsar Ag .5 meter from table to phono pre. Loving the detail I'm getting but my past experiences with silver were... not good. Dry, tilted up, not "fun" or musical to my ears. This stuff he's doing? It's like having my cake and eating it too. Just wish it were cheaper, lol.
     
  14. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Thinking of making balanced cables using CAT7 S/FTP solid core cable. Since these are double shielded it should work pretty well. Regular cat usually isn't shielded. Cheap and should perform better than stranded mic cable, also cheap even for the lengths i need.
     
  15. ohshitgorillas

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    I'm into building cables, I've made a handful of interconnects, digital coax cables, power cables, and headphone cables for myself. My experience so far is that, for analog cables, the connector quality makes more difference than the wire content/quality (RCA), that the wire's dielectric can play a role, and that solid > stranded (or, for headphone cables, litz > non-litz). As far as RCAs go, I've also experimented with stripping solid core Neotech copper wire bare and re-sheathing it loosely in paracord and then gently braiding the four wires together, to try approximate 'bare wire', with decent results. It's a bit flimsy and needs to be handled delicately, and looks like shit, I need to experiment with different connectors but so far the results are pretty positive.

    I'm curious in particular what you guys think makes for a good RCA connector, what are your favorites that don't cost a fortune? What do you find makes the most difference? For my part, I've I've found that locking connectors (PartsExpress and knockoff WBTs) have yielded the best results with a more full, smooth, and deep sound. I still have a lot of experimenting to do but welcome any knowledge that anyone wants to kick my way.
     
  16. bixby

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    Agreed, wire is part but not the whole. I had some VH Audio pulsars with 3 different RCAs and all sounded slightly different. I gave up on ultra priced RCAs though WBT Nextgen silvers sounded best on that wire.

    RCAs that I like include older DH Audio Silversonic RCAs and Furutech FP-126 Gold. I have not heard but have read the Dayton locking RCAs are supposed to be good. Most of the cheap REAN and Neutriks did not sound very good in my experience.

    Right now, I get great results from Grimm TPR wire and cheap but surprisingly good Amphenol RCAs.
     
  17. toddrhodes

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    I've been really happy with the KLE connectors like here:
    https://www.vhaudio.com/kle-rca.html

    They're not locking per se, but they are very solid, firm connections. Single ground point, very easy to build on and to work with across a variety of cable diameters. They're a little odd with coax-style cabling like Pulsar. I used ETI RCA ends for the Cu2 Pulsar I used between my line stage and amplifier. I'm using KLEs though between phono stage and line stage, and between my balanced transformer and line stage on the digital side. I'm using the Silver ends for those leads because I'm also using silver wire (DIY Fine Silver Interconnects, to be specific).

    Both the ETIs and KLEs are very low mass, as well.
     
  18. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Second the Furu FP-126, though I've stopped doing as much cable futzing since I found these guys:

    https://thesoundparcel.co/collections/audiophile

    The Grimm and Gotham stuff is surprisingly good (really good) for cheap. I used to have mostly VHAudio stuff, but now running mostly Gotham GAC 4/1 Ultrapro and GAC 1 Ultrapro with either Furutech FP-126s or Neutrik XLR.
     
  19. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Ok, no pics since everything's already installed, but for anyone buying into DIY power cables, I've been getting great results from the newer Oyaide Tunami V2 102SSC stuff on my Aegirs and more recently feeding Yggdrasil A2. Best source is Chuya-online. Tried out some of the new Oyaide armored plugs (004s) on the Yggdrasil and so far things are sounding really elegant/subtle with much better macro and micro dynamics.

    Or, just use these if you think this is all snake oil but still feel a need to "upgrade".
     
  20. furiossa

    furiossa New

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    This is really nice cable. I am interesting to make two balanced custom cables for my Samson QH4 amp which use balanced 1/4” (6.35mm) TRS left and right inputs
    The first cable (2.5mm balanced TRRS to dual 6.35mm TRS) would be to connect iBasso DC01 (2.5mm TRRS output) with Samson QH4 (dual 6.35mm TRS inputs)
    Second cable (4.4mm pentaconn TRRRS to dual 6.35mm TRS) is for iFi Zen DAC (4.4mm TRRRS output) and Samson QH4 (dual 6.35mm TRS inputs)
    I put together this little PDF booklet with some information for these devices and
    schemes for these two cables (version #1 not use ground and version #2 with ground included).
    My question is: if this is the correct way to wire these cables, and if so, which of these cables
    should use ground and which not?
    I would really appreciate any advice
     

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